How do you free up ports?

[RZZZA]

This program I'm running is telling me its not working at full capacity because some ports that are needed are not free. My dad, who is the techy person in the house, wants nothing to do with it because he's afraid hackers will get into our computer network or something. He's a very difficult person for me to deal with, so I'd rather not deal with him and just go behind his back and open up the ports anyway.

Problem is I dunno how, I'm running windows 2000 xp edition, so if anyone who knows a lot about windows can tell me just step by step how to enable these ports and then disable them later so that these anonymous hackers my dad is so scared of dont get in, I'll rep you up and appreciate your help very much.

[Spiff]

Do you have a firewall installed, or maybe you use the windows one itself? Make sure whatever software youre using allows the program access to the internet by unblocking it or whatever. Also do you use a router to access the net? If so it may also have a set list of blocked ports, in which case youd have to tell it to unblock the port this program uses

Im sure i used a.. similar.. program, and found help on various other forums and sites.. have a read of this for example:

http://community.boredofstudies.org/...ing-ports.html

or

http://www.codecomments.com/message354156.html

[RZZZA]

Goddamn, all that sounds extremely complicated. Well thanks for the help, but I knew going in that I'd be in way over my head

[Spiff]

Well to start off, do you use firewall software? how does your computer access the internets?

maybe youd be quicker searching the forums of whatever software it is, theres bound to be lots of topics there

[RZZZA]

Yeah I searched through the first link you gave and it seems like I'm too ignorant about computers to even follow simple directions like that. My dad is really adamant about this hacker thing. He says any program that asks you to open up ports is already suspect. Is he just being paranoid or what?

Come to think of it, I dont even know if I have a firewall, if I did shouldnt there be an indication icon somewhere, like next to where it says the time in the lower right hand corner. Theres nothing that indicates I have a firewall running. I know we defiently have a router, all I know is that its a little box with flashing lights that lots of wires plug into, and its in the room thats next to my room.

Y'know on second thought, I dont know why I thought I could do this, its obvious I'm far too ignorant to be messing around with delicate settings like these.

[Spiff]

I wouldnt be too worried about hackers really, people who work with computers are trained to be paranoid as its usualy part of their job to ensure nothing can go wrong, the biggest threat to a home user comes from viruses from visiting dodgy websites and downloading dodgy applications, nine out of ten times common sense is the best strategy.

Anyway if youre not willing to try and fiddle about with firewalls and routers and such, you could always just try a different application and see if you have any luck (stick to well known ones though), some are better at setting themselves up than others